“Permanently. He shot himself this afternoon.”
“And only this morning I made up my mind to try to help him,” said Howard regretfully.
“You could not have hoped to succeed so well. His case needed something more than temporary expedient. But, to come to the point, I had a slight acquaintance with him. He left a note for me--mailed it just before he shot himself. In it he asked that I insert a personal in the Herald. Unfortunately I have not the money. I thought that you as a journalist might be able to suggest something.”
The German held out a slip of cheap writing paper on which was written: “Helen--when you see this it will be over--L.”
“A good story,” was Howard’s first thought, his news-instinct alert. And then he remembered that it was not for him to tell. “I will attend to this for you to-morrow.”
“Thank you,” said the German, helping himself to the whiskey. “Have you seen the new lodgers?”
“Those in the room behind me? Yes. I saw them at the front door as I came in.”
“They’re a queer pair--the youngest I’ve seen in this house. I’ve been wondering what tempest wrecked them on this forlorn coast so early in the voyage.”
“My dear sir, we are all--except you--wrecks here, all unseaworthy at least.”
“One of them was quite pretty, I thought,” said Howard, “the slender one with the black hair.”
“They are not mates. The other girl is of a different sort. She’s more used to this kind of life, at least to poverty. I fancy Miss Black-Hair looks on it as a lark. But she’ll find out the truth by the time she has mounted another story.”
“Here, to go up means to go down,” Howard said, weary of the conversation and wishing that the German would leave.
“They say that they’re sisters,” the German went on, again helping himself to the whiskey; “They say they have run away from home because of a stepmother and that they are going to earn their own living. But they won’t. They spend the nights racing about with a gang of the young wretches of this neighbourhood. They won’t be able to stand getting up early for work. And then----”
The German blew out a huge cloud of cigarette smoke, shrugged his shoulders and added: “Miss Black-Hair may get on up town presently. But I doubt it. The Tenderloin rarely recruits from down here.”